Wichita eagle., 1887-10-21

wailing echoes sounding out with horrible
distinctness.
looked around
The hangings at tho farther end OF the
room blew out straight, and yet there was
not a breath OF air to stir them. The alert
stiffness of the hour before the dawn was
over all the powers of nature.
/ put my hand to my head; it was claulmy.
I rubbed my hands together; they wero stif
as ice / looked at my watch; it was ten
minutes after three.
Ten minutes and still that sound was ring
ing in my ears-still l heard the fast, regular
beats fall with desperate hatred OF energy.
A little fainter now, and little fainter, not
ceasing gradually. but merely that a greater
distance was growing between me and it
whatever it was.
Should attempt to follow 1T
Decidedly.
walked the length Of half the room and
the curtains blew back in my face pushed
through them, the attempt at resistance CIV
ing me- an angered energy. / crossed the
other half OF my apartment to the door. 1t
stood open.
had left it closed, latched, locked!
passed out on to the gallery.
same intensity as at the first moment had
heard them.
They grew louder still, and the long vail
bitter, horrible as the wordless prayer OF
some disembodied spirit in hell itself, sounded
desperately in my ears as pushed on.
The corridor was very long, and it was not
until had almost reached the extreme end
of it that there came pause in the sounds.
Istopped passed my bands across my
eyes
Was it II Was in reality awaksi
Bahi Truly. As l stepped on o pace I
knocked against palm tree in its great
tub and bruised my cheek on the bark.
stood still once more, and then theirs came
a sigh--Madre de dios
Not the sigh of suffering humanity, and
that is sad enough.
Not the sigh Of a lost spirit, for that even
possesses certain pathos
But the sigh of a devil, and trembled in
every limb as heard It.
This DEVILS sigh, and after il q crash, as II
some one threw himself with the utmost vio-
lence against the wall Of the corridor.
brushed to the spot, guided by the sound
spread my fingers over the wall; it shook
slightly, TREMENDOUSLY.
Very well.
collected myself.
The morning Lad begun to peep in at the
skylights and also at the windows bslow in
the court.
| gathered myself together with all my
strength of lusty youth was six feet in
height and broad, as most of my country are
and threw myself against the wall at the
spot where the sounds had ceased.
Once, twice, thrice! At last the mud wall
yielded, end, enveloped, enmeshed IA dust
and crumbling ruins, pitched in
In-wheref
could scarcely breathe.
choked with the dust.
Twas blinded with it; my head swan.
staggered about, et every step my breath
seeming to come with only the moro diff
Guilty.
was sitting with this charnel house air
this spot reelzing with the pent up, condensed
vapors OF mystery--death. what elssf-for
800 years!
Ipulled of my collar, my cravat
Should l 60 backf
No-most emphstically.
As the question arose in my mind heard,
once again, the whir Of the rods-ths echo
of the devilish sigh.
The light could now discern, struggled in
little through the jagged hssure had made
In the wall n forced my entrance, and with
It cams Whit Of air.
turned around.
By the dim CLEAN I beheld myself in .
large apartment. At first could distinguish,
as I cautiously crept around its four sides,
clinging TO tho cold walls, but little. Finally
r Of vow rb~a 4
was window, walled up on the outsidei
With the increasing light, dim although it
was. heheld few moldering rags and worm
eaten bits of wood, the remnants Of furniture,
yery likely. A pedestal Of marble stood at
the eastern end; it fell cracking ruin as /
touched it. book that crumbled into a
film of dust lay In one corner. l stopped 10
pick up its fragments. The only scrap that
held together was that portion Of tbs Cor
dova leather binding bearing its title-"The
Talmud"
held it between my fingers, and, oppressed
almost to death by the atmosphere, made
for the aperture.
As did so-again, the last time-unearthly
strokes fell ringing, singing, flashing, cutting
Oh the echoing metal.
turned back, and stumbling to the middle
of the room, or what seemed to me the mid
die, whence tbs sounds came, dashed my
foot against something
Whati
Well-ths:
The skeleton of man.
Iraised myself upon my knees, felt 1t, !
saw il lying there in all its miserable squalor.
In its fleshless right hand, tightly gripped,
fail Of metallic rods.
In its teeth. held fast in the agonies Of
starvation, stick Of worm eaten wood.
Across its breast. holding 1t pinioned to the
ground. lay ali image OF silver Of the Blessed
Virgin.
The first ray Of sunlight that had pene-
trated this place in three centuries at this
moment crept IN the rent had made in the
wall.
It fell ecross the silver image.
lifted it in my arms; 1t weighed full forty
pounds.
DID the quarraquirTi ever again awaken
me at 5 o'clock in the morningi
No.
And was any one ever again disturbed BY
those cruel soundsf
Never.
And. after all, how can one say il did not
dream tile whole effaIri
Oh, well, that is true, except for this
reason:
"The silver image" pitted and beaten.
stands today in the oratory Of my fathers
house in Moscow, whittier carried it when
Quilted Lima-C5unt Chopolsky in New
York Mercury.
Different Theories
It's said there is a town in Scotland where
twenty-five men have refused 10 speak to or
recognize each other for years, because they
have different theories about the creation OF